DRG jawan injured in IED blast in Chhattisgarh

A District Reserve Guard jawan was injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) laid by Naxals went off in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district in the early hours of Tuesday, police said.

The explosion took place around 1.30 am in a forest near Rangapara village in Chintagufa area, about 500 km from here, when a DRG team was returning after carrying out an anti-Naxal operation, a senior police official told PTI.

Several teams of the Special Task Force (STF), District Reserve Guard (DRG), and the CRPF's elite CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) were out since Monday on 'Operation Prahar IV' against Naxals in the forest areas of south Sukma, considered as a stronghold of ultras, he said.

When one of the patrolling teams of DRG was on way back to its camp on Monday late night, assistant constable Madvi Sukka, 25, inadvertently stepped on the pressure IED connection, triggering the blast that left him injured, the official said.

The injured jawan was initially rushed to a field hospital of security forces in Chintagufa. He was airlifted to Raipur in the morning and admitted to a private hospital, he said.

DRG is the anti-Naxal unit of Chhattisgarh Police.

On Monday, nine Naxals and two DRG personnel were killed in separate encounters in south Sukma during the anti-Maoist operation.

The first three instalments of Operation Prahar were conducted in the past two years during which security forces managed to inflict heavy damage on Naxal activities in the state's Bastar region, another police official said.

The fourth edition of the offensive was launched soon after the state Assembly polls were held in two phases on November 12 and November 20, he said.